Chapter Twenty One.
“While friends we were, the hot debates
That rose ’twixt you and me!
Now we are mere associates
And never disagree.”
Fraser’s Magazine.
Anthony’s engagement, coming so soon after the other affair, made a little sensation in the neighbourhood. Things die out so quickly that, except in the more immediate Thorpe circle, his supposed act of injustice might have ceased to interest people; but the young man was so antagonistic, so sore, so fierce with all the world, that there was nothing for it but to take the position he insisted upon. The news of his engagement gave something pleasanter to talk about. There were a few injured mothers, but the gentlemen generally pronounced that he had shown his sense by making up his mind to marry Bennett’s niece. The Bennetts were favourites, and held a thoroughly respectable place in the county; and though Anthony might have done better as to family, every one felt that a sort of cloud had just touched him, and was on the whole glad that the Bennetts should be rewarded for their hospitality and liberality and conservatism by seeing their niece well married. As for the Squire, who had been more ruffled and made uneasy by the consequences of his own coolness than he himself knew, he came into the room where Winifred and Bessie were together, chuckling and rubbing his hands.
“So there’s to be a wedding to waken us all up,” he said briskly. “You know all about it, girls, of course. I’m always the last in the place to hear a bit of news—but there!”
“But there!—you always know it before we’ve time to tell you,” Bessie said saucily. “Is that what you mean, papa?”
“You’ll find out what I mean one day, when you won’t like it, Miss Pert,” said the Squire, pulling her hair. “I must say Anthony Miles has shown greater sense than I should have expected. He’s just the man to have made a fool of himself. If he’d not been so confounded touchy about that business of Pitt’s, I’d have walked down and wished him joy; but I suppose that won’t do,—not just at first, eh, Winifred?”
“No, indeed,” said Winifred, her face flushing.
“I suppose not,” said Mr Chester, regretfully. “Those young fellows fly off at such tangents, there’s no knowing where to take them. One would think I’d been the one to set that report going, and I’m sure, for his fathers sake, I’d have given a hundred pounds—well, it’s over and done now, and can’t be helped; people do say there was no real harm in it when old Tregennas left it in his hands, but I wouldn’t have believed it, I wouldn’t have believed it. And then he goes and fights shy of the friends who would have stuck by him if they could.”
“Papa, he never did it. How can he help being hurt with you all, when you will not trust him!”
Winifred’s face had grown pale after the flush, but her voice did not tremble, and she looked at her father with clear steadfast eyes which always affected him, though, oddly enough, they often gave him a twinge of discomfort, and a little irritated him into obstinacy.
“Nonsense, Winifred,” he said sharply, while he winced. “He has never so much as denied it. Women shouldn’t talk of what they don’t understand. And it hasn’t anything to do with his getting married, has it? I wish you to tell Mrs Miles that it’s given me a great deal of pleasure to hear of this match, and you and Bess had better drive into Underham and call on the Bennetts.”
He was really desirous by this time to mend the breach, and perhaps a little secretly relieved that Mr Pitt’s other idea about Anthony had been proved so erroneous. Before all this had happened, and while Anthony had been a poorer man, a marriage between him and Winifred, although it had never presented itself to his imagination, would have met with no opposition from him, except the fret which arose from a little personal dislike, natural enough between the two characters. But since a breath of dishonour had rested upon the young man, it would have been a bitter blow to the Squire to have been forced to give him his daughter. He could by this time make some excuses for him, for his father’s sake,—indeed, now that he was not constantly meeting him, and getting irritated by his schemes, he really liked him a good deal more heartily than he had ever done before. But that would not have availed in such a trial. Therefore he now felt a certain amount of gratitude to him for removing the vague uneasiness which every now and then cropped up when he looked at Winifred or remembered shrewd Mr Pitt. He even spoke sharply to Bessie, who yawned and declared it was too hot to go to Underham.
“You’ll go where your sister bids you. Winifred, don’t let that child give herself airs to you. If she does, speak to me. I’ll get a governess again, or pack her off to school, or something.”
“I wonder who would mind that most,” said Bessie, jumping up and hugging him.
“That’s very fine. I know somebody who’d cry her eyes out over backboards and French exercises, and all the rest of it. Not but what I believe your mother would have had you do it,” said the Squire, with a sudden wistful look at his favourite.
“She is not so bad as she seems, papa,” said Winifred, rousing herself. “We read every morning, and she really works hard. Mr Anderson is quite satisfied.”
“Well, mind she doesn’t get her headaches again,” her father said, veering round to another anxiety. “I’d rather she only knew her ABC than get headaches, and I’m not sure you’re careful enough, Winifred. Do you hear, Bess? Go out for a scamper on the pony when you’re tired of all this work. You’re not so strong as your sister.” Winifred did not answer. Something crossed her face so quickly that only the tenderest watcher could have seen it, a look which is very sad on those young faces. There is no storm or impatience in it, but a kind of weary protest. You hear it sometimes in a voice. The Squire went on with his injunctions about Underham and Miss Lovell.
“I’m ready enough to be on friendly terms,” were his parting words, “only one doesn’t know on which side to meet these touchy young fellows. But this marriage looks as if he were coming to his senses.”
“And we are to smooth over everything,” said Bessie, shutting her book and jumping up. “I don’t care to smooth it now that Anthony has been so stupid. That horrid Miss Lovell! Don’t you know how she walks, holding her hand out stiffly—so. You needn’t look shocked, Winnie dear, for she does, and I know she is horrid.”
“Don’t say anything more about it, please,” Winifred pleaded, with a look of pain. “I am going to order the carriage at four o’clock.”
“I hate them all, and I hate going,” said Bessie rebelliously. “Well?” as her sister made no answer to this downright statement.
“Well?”
“Don’t you mean to scold, or at least talk me into my proper behaviour?”
“You must learn to find what you call your proper behaviour for yourself,” said Winifred, trying to smile brightly, as she looked into the girl’s dancing eyes. But her own suddenly filled with tears, and just as quickly Bessie’s arms were round her.
“Something is the matter, I know, and you may as well tell me, Winnie, or I shall be obliged to find it out. Something is making you unhappy. Is it about Anthony?”
The hot colour flashed into Winifred’s cheeks, but she was too honest to give an evasive answer, and said, holding Bessie’s clasping hands, and pausing for a moment between her sentences,—
“I think it is, dear. Anthony has suffered cruelly from this wicked report. And it is so miserable between us all, when—we used to be so happy—”
She stopped. She had been speaking in a low, almost humble voice, as if her heart felt a pang of shame in its sorrow.
“Anthony doesn’t care for her,” said Bessie, shaking her head with a little experienced air. “He can’t, because she isn’t really nice. I believe he has been stupid enough to do it because he was cross.”
Was it true?—this dread, that even Bessie could put into words? And if it was—O poor, poor Anthony!
The girls drove into Underham that afternoon, when the extreme heat of the day was supposed to be over. But there still remained a dry parching oppression in the air, the long weedy grasses hung listlessly one above the other, without a breeze to shake the dust from the motionless leaves, the pretty green hedges were all whitened and dead looking. Without any thought of avoiding it, it almost seemed to Winifred, as she drove along, as if the pain of the visit would be unendurable. But there was no such relief as hearing that Mrs Bennett and Miss Lovell were not at home, and the sisters were ushered into the comfortable drawing-room where Ada sat with a somewhat too apparent consciousness of being prepared to receive visitors, and quite disposed to make a little show off of the dignity she considered appropriate to the occasion.
“It was very kind of you to come in this heat. My aunt wished me to drive with her, but I really thought it too oppressive. Don’t you find it very trying?”
“I do not think we thought about it,” said Winifred, truly.
“Ah, then you are so strong. It must be very nice to be so strong, and not to be obliged to think so much of one’s self. Now, I am obliged to be so careful, for if I were to go out in the sun, very likely I should have quite a headache.”
It was so difficult to be sympathetic over this possibility, that Winifred found it hard to frame a suitable answer, and was grateful to Mrs Bennett for coming in at the moment, and presenting another outlet for conversation. Bessie was sitting upright, rigidly and girlishly contemptuous, and subjects seemed alarmingly few.
“My father begged me to leave his card for Mr Bennett,” Winifred said at last. “He would have come himself if some magistrate’s business had not been in the way, but he is such a dreadfully conscientious magistrate, that all our little persuasions are quite hopeless.”
“I hope he is not very severe,—the poor people are so much to be pitied,” said kindly Mrs Bennett. “Only think if one was starving! I am sure I should be very likely to take a joint or something.”
“No, he is not very severe,” Winifred said hesitating, with her thoughts wandering. “It is rather that he has such strict ideas of uprightness that he finds it hard to make excuses—”
She stopped suddenly, and the colour faded out of her face. Looking at Mrs Bennett, she had not heard the door open, nor seen Ada’s rippling smiles, nor known that Anthony had come behind her, until a general movement made her look round, and then her start and change of colour gave an unlucky point to the words. Fortunately, Ada, who had longed that Anthony should come in, was triumphant, and not quick enough to read any discomfiture, claiming him at once with a show of possession.
“O Anthony, have you seen Mr Mannering? He has been here and was so nice. He has asked us all to a garden party on Saturday, on purpose to show me his flowers. He asked me what time would be best, and I said four to seven, and we promised to be there punctually. I told him I would tell you all about it, but he says he shall write a formal invitation, so you are sure to have it, though of course I answered for you. I dare say you will be there,” Ada went on, with a gracious patronage of Winifred.
But Winifred was not likely to notice such small affronts, although at another, time she might not have been so meek. She was looking at Ada and wondering. Was this indeed his ideal? Could he be satisfied? There was a sort of bewilderment in recalling the fastidious Anthony of past days, which hardly allowed her to answer Ada, who, however, was too content with her position to require much. Nothing could be more delightful to her than to queen it before Winifred and Bessie, and to dwell on the party which was to be given in her honour; and, without any real ill-nature, she liked to feel that she was in possession of what she fancied was the ambition of all womankind, an acknowledged lover, and thus exalted above Miss Chester, who had always seemed to her a little unapproachable. In her turn she now felt herself placed on a serene altitude, and being there, it would have been impossible for her unimaginative nature to have conceived that adverse currents should be blowing. She went on cheerfully, when no one answered her,—
“The great thing is that it should be fine. I do so hope it will be fine, don’t you, Anthony?”
“Yes—if you have set your heart upon it,” he said, with a little shortness, for which he hated himself. But even to be called Anthony grated upon him at this moment, and he carefully avoided using her name.
“Of course I have, and so have you, too. Will you come here first?”
“I am sorry to say I cannot be there. I shall be in London on Thursday night.”
He said it not unkindly, for it struck him sharply that it was hard upon Ada, but he made no attempt to soften the words, and turned immediately to speak to Mrs Bennett, who was talking kind little placid talk to Winifred. Ada opened her eyes for a moment’s astonishment, and then laughed.
“O, London must wait, of course! Aunt Henrietta, do you hear? Anthony has the most absurd idea that we shall let him go to London before Mr Mannering’s party!”
Even silken fetters can cut, and something had nettled Anthony throughout the conversation; but he kept the irritation very fairly out of his reply, only saying earnestly,—
“I am particularly sorry to do what you dislike, but there can be no question of my going. The London business has already been neglected too long.”
Ada still believed in her own invincibility. “He will come,—I shall make him,” she said, smiling and nodding.
There was nothing more to be said, and Winifred, who had almost against her will been garnering impressions, felt that escape was possible. Anthony had rather pointedly abstained from addressing her. She was not quite sure how much of the strain and oppression was due to her own feelings, but her heart ached under some new, sad weight as they drove away.